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Moral Indignation

The other day, watching some replays of the march on Washington in 1963, I was telling my eldest daughter about how, when the bus I was on left Boston, I waved to my husband and my three little children then three, four and six, and I was not necessarily sure that I would ever see them again. After the fact we know the march was peaceful; before the fact we did not know what might happen. My daughter asked me point blank: “Mom, why did you go?” I answered spontaneously: “Moral indignation.”

Moral indignation about the way people were being treated. Those circumstances required a response from me, one person among what turned out to be hundreds of others.

Listening to John Kerry last week, I heard the same moral indignation. I also heard it when you spoke the next day. I want to thank both of you for understanding and expressing the strong sense of moral indignation that the use of any chemical weapons should provoke in all of us.

Growing up in Holland I heard horrible stories from my parents about the gas being used in the First World War. I experienced the German occupation in Holland during the Second World War and learned about the terrible atrocities perpetuated in the concentration camps. War is the most inhumane action used by human beings against each other. By now, 2013, there should be war no more — we know enough, we should have learned enough to settle all our differences by other means.

But that is not the case. I fully support you in your need and wish, in humanity’s need, to not let this use of chemical weapons go unchallenged and unpunished. I trust your judgment, savvy and smarts to know what specific action to take. Just like in the march on Washington, we do not necessarily know what the consequences of such action may be but our moral indignation has to be stronger than our fear of possible consequences.

You are carrying a heavy burden. I hope and trust that the country in the final analysis will be with you and that we have not yet been so degraded by violence that there no longer are any limits left. Thank you for setting a strong moral compass.

Alida J. O’Loughlin, Vineyard Haven

Comments (1)

Peter Robb, Holliston and Oak Bluffs

Ms. O'Loughlin's letter to President Obama is impressive. Her youth in occupied Holland and her participation in the famous March on Washington in 1963 are sobering. Indeed, her experiences are unique and admirable and we should listen closely when she shares her thoughts with us. However, I think she gives Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry far too much credit with regard to the Crisis in Syria. Our government has screwed this up from the start and now Russia's Putin holds all the cards. Our Navy is circling endlessly in the Eastern Med and our allies and enemies are laughing at us. Mr. Obama's red line is dangerous, pushing the world to the edge of an explosive regional war. Call it brinkmanship or blackmail or stupidity--it's a bad way to lead. Let's assume Ms. O'Loughlin gets her wish and the chemical weapons magically disappear tonight (in the middle of a bloody civil war), how does our policy remove Assad or end a civil war that has already killed 100,000 people using conventional weapons? Unlike Ms. O'Loughlin, the vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats in Washington rightly disagree with the president and do not trust Mr. Obama to manage another war in the Middle East. It's Jimmy Carter all over again, folks.